Only the Truth Will Make you Free.
On Highway 45 as you drive into Dallas there is a large billboard with a homey nativity scene. It says “Just Skip Church, Its all Fake News.” It was put up by the American Atheist Association, whose leader says “We all know what you hear in church isn’t true.”
Now I’d love to take him on in a debate, but I fear he has a point. Christians seem to be falling out of the habit of seeking the truth.
It starts small; a sermon illustration either manufactured for the occasion or borrowed from another source. At one time pastors could buy books of such stories, or get them in newsletters. Now they come straight off the Facebook feed or an email chain. The characters have made-up names and there is no date or specific place mentioned. After all why bother: Its the punchline, the point of the story, that matters.
Except its not. Our congregations are already too credulous - believing all kinds of crazy non-truths, half-truths, distorted statistics, and outright lies. In an age when virtually everyone in authority lies on a regular basis the only way to be faithful to the “truth that set us free” is minute scrupulosity regarding facts and absolute clarity of language. If the veracity of a statement can’t be checked it should have no place in a sermon, or its problematic nature should be made clear. If the preacher cannot distinguish clearly between, for example, weather and climate then they shouldn’t pray for a change in one or lament a change in the other.
Of course the place this is most important is scripture, and that takes systematic teaching through preaching that the “truth” character of language depends on the alignment of its purpose and its content. And that in turn means challenging naive literalism and its doppelgänger, Enlightenment skepticism.
We need to guide our congregations into richer epistemological self-understanding if any form of truth within scripture is to set them free to engage their world in all its complexity.
And that brings us to the most powerful force against truth in contemporary churches: interpretations of people and events through the lenses of an ideology.
Merriam Webster defines ideology as:
It isn’t the only failed ideology. Capitalism is defined by Merriam Webster as "an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market.” As a description this is ideology in sense 1 and not an ideology in the sense of 3 above.
However,if you add to this definition the assertion that such a capitalist economic system will result in the greatest good for the most people you have entered into the realm of ideology. You are suggesting a system of policies that result in a system of behaviors in order to achieve a particular goal and realize a particular set of values based on unproven assumptions about the results of human behavior.
Socialism is likewise a description of a particular economic system extended to become an ideology by asserting that it is the best way to achieve the most good for the most people, and thus motivating a sociopolitical program, albeit one different from capitalism. And as an ideology it is likewise based on unproven assumptions about human behavior and their results.
The problem with both capitalism and socialism as ideologies, and both are promoted from Christian pulpits, is twofold. First, neither can be easily aligned with the sociopolitical program represented by the Biblical concept of the Reign of God. This is the value each believes it realizes,“greatest good for the most people,” isn’t a value associated with God’s Reign in scripture. What Jesus teaches is much more radical - the full realization of all authentic good for all those chosen by God to receive it. Neither capitalism nor socialism can deliver on this promise. To associate God’s Reign with either is a grave injustice.
The second problem is that neither capitalism nor socialism, as an ideology, is verifiable in the real world. This is why promoting either from the pulpit leads away from reality-based programs to do what Jesus did in enacting the Reign of God. Specific policies enacted by governments at various levels may be rationally related to achieving the realization of specific aspects of life in God’s Reign. They may do what Jesus did in his ministry. And they can be tested by their results. But these overarching ideologies remain unproven and unprovable if only because social realities never allow their complete implementation.
What Christians need to learn is not faith in ideological framings of society, but how to analyze the specific impacts of their own actions as citizens in relation to the work of Christ. This, I note, is hard work for them and for their pastors. When you consider the complex effects that all human actions have on all complicated societies you quickly find contradictory evidence and large gray areas. Yet that is the nature of reality.
Which gets us to a last form of surrender to untested and untestable presuppositions: judgment. When Jesus told his disciples “judge not lest you be judged” he was saying, it seems to me, don’t put others in your ideological program lest you discover they have put you in theirs.
Or to put his words in more relevant modern terms. Don’t judge the poor according to your capitalist ideology lest they judge you according to their socialist ideology Don’t assume they are poor because they are lazy lest they assume you are rich because you are venal. And of course visa-versa.
Or also relevant: don’t judge those who reject same-sex marriage according to your dichotomous ideology of Christlike and homophobe lest you be judged by the dichotomous ideology of obedient to Christ and sell-outs to contemporary culture.
This place, a place without simplistic ideologies and facile judgments, is where scripture tells us we must live: sometime after the resurrection and before the Lord’s return. This is why again and again the Bible urges Christians to endure the trials they face, keep focused on the task they have in Christ, remember their goal, and have faith in one whose presence is felt but cannot be seen.
We may not be able to convince the skeptical atheist that truth is spoken in church. But at least in seeking the truth without falling prey to the intellectual laziness of ideology we will be seeking the freedom Christ promises it alone will bring.
Now I’d love to take him on in a debate, but I fear he has a point. Christians seem to be falling out of the habit of seeking the truth.
It starts small; a sermon illustration either manufactured for the occasion or borrowed from another source. At one time pastors could buy books of such stories, or get them in newsletters. Now they come straight off the Facebook feed or an email chain. The characters have made-up names and there is no date or specific place mentioned. After all why bother: Its the punchline, the point of the story, that matters.
Except its not. Our congregations are already too credulous - believing all kinds of crazy non-truths, half-truths, distorted statistics, and outright lies. In an age when virtually everyone in authority lies on a regular basis the only way to be faithful to the “truth that set us free” is minute scrupulosity regarding facts and absolute clarity of language. If the veracity of a statement can’t be checked it should have no place in a sermon, or its problematic nature should be made clear. If the preacher cannot distinguish clearly between, for example, weather and climate then they shouldn’t pray for a change in one or lament a change in the other.
Of course the place this is most important is scripture, and that takes systematic teaching through preaching that the “truth” character of language depends on the alignment of its purpose and its content. And that in turn means challenging naive literalism and its doppelgänger, Enlightenment skepticism.
We need to guide our congregations into richer epistemological self-understanding if any form of truth within scripture is to set them free to engage their world in all its complexity.
And that brings us to the most powerful force against truth in contemporary churches: interpretations of people and events through the lenses of an ideology.
Merriam Webster defines ideology as:
- a systematic body of concepts especially about human life or culture
- a manner or the content of thinking characteristic of an individual, group, or culture.
- The integrated assertions, theories and aims that constitute a sociopolitical program
It isn’t the only failed ideology. Capitalism is defined by Merriam Webster as "an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market.” As a description this is ideology in sense 1 and not an ideology in the sense of 3 above.
However,if you add to this definition the assertion that such a capitalist economic system will result in the greatest good for the most people you have entered into the realm of ideology. You are suggesting a system of policies that result in a system of behaviors in order to achieve a particular goal and realize a particular set of values based on unproven assumptions about the results of human behavior.
Socialism is likewise a description of a particular economic system extended to become an ideology by asserting that it is the best way to achieve the most good for the most people, and thus motivating a sociopolitical program, albeit one different from capitalism. And as an ideology it is likewise based on unproven assumptions about human behavior and their results.
The problem with both capitalism and socialism as ideologies, and both are promoted from Christian pulpits, is twofold. First, neither can be easily aligned with the sociopolitical program represented by the Biblical concept of the Reign of God. This is the value each believes it realizes,“greatest good for the most people,” isn’t a value associated with God’s Reign in scripture. What Jesus teaches is much more radical - the full realization of all authentic good for all those chosen by God to receive it. Neither capitalism nor socialism can deliver on this promise. To associate God’s Reign with either is a grave injustice.
The second problem is that neither capitalism nor socialism, as an ideology, is verifiable in the real world. This is why promoting either from the pulpit leads away from reality-based programs to do what Jesus did in enacting the Reign of God. Specific policies enacted by governments at various levels may be rationally related to achieving the realization of specific aspects of life in God’s Reign. They may do what Jesus did in his ministry. And they can be tested by their results. But these overarching ideologies remain unproven and unprovable if only because social realities never allow their complete implementation.
What Christians need to learn is not faith in ideological framings of society, but how to analyze the specific impacts of their own actions as citizens in relation to the work of Christ. This, I note, is hard work for them and for their pastors. When you consider the complex effects that all human actions have on all complicated societies you quickly find contradictory evidence and large gray areas. Yet that is the nature of reality.
Which gets us to a last form of surrender to untested and untestable presuppositions: judgment. When Jesus told his disciples “judge not lest you be judged” he was saying, it seems to me, don’t put others in your ideological program lest you discover they have put you in theirs.
Or to put his words in more relevant modern terms. Don’t judge the poor according to your capitalist ideology lest they judge you according to their socialist ideology Don’t assume they are poor because they are lazy lest they assume you are rich because you are venal. And of course visa-versa.
Or also relevant: don’t judge those who reject same-sex marriage according to your dichotomous ideology of Christlike and homophobe lest you be judged by the dichotomous ideology of obedient to Christ and sell-outs to contemporary culture.
This place, a place without simplistic ideologies and facile judgments, is where scripture tells us we must live: sometime after the resurrection and before the Lord’s return. This is why again and again the Bible urges Christians to endure the trials they face, keep focused on the task they have in Christ, remember their goal, and have faith in one whose presence is felt but cannot be seen.
We may not be able to convince the skeptical atheist that truth is spoken in church. But at least in seeking the truth without falling prey to the intellectual laziness of ideology we will be seeking the freedom Christ promises it alone will bring.
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